In his August 4 Letter to the Editor, Mr. Thompson raised the question “Where did the Republicans Go?” Here’s my take with a touch of history.
President Eisenhower created the interstate highway system. President Trump celebrates 250 years of U.S. Democracy by wrecking the White House, Reflecting Pool and Kennedy Arts Center; hanging mugshots of himself on federal buildings; and refusing to finance Congressionally-appropriated programs.
President Eisenhower had a top individual income tax of 91 percent. President Reagan reduced that top tax from 70 to 28 percent.
President Eisenhower established the Department of Health Education, and Welfare (now the Dept. of Health and Human Services, HHS). President Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a science denier, as Secretary of HHS.
President Eisenhower expanded Social Security coverage and integrated it into the dedicated federal trust. Recent Republican presidents support taking Social Security out of the dedicated trust and into stocks, bonds, and Wall Street investors accounts.
Presidents and the U.S. economy:
• Ronald Reagan (Republican): Increased defense spending and enacted major tax cuts, which roughly doubled the annual deficit.
• George H.W. Bush (Republican): Presided over an economic downturn and rising spending, pushing the deficit to a record, at the time, of $290 billion in 1992.
• Bill Clinton (Democrat): Lowered the deficit consistently through the 1990s, ending with consecutive budget surpluses (reaching $236 billion in 2000).
• George W. Bush (Republican): Implemented large tax cuts and launched major military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading into the 2008 financial crisis where the deficit hit $458 billion.
• Barack Obama (Democrat): Inherited a record $1.4 trillion deficit from the 2008 financial crisis and cut the annual deficit by more than half by the end of his second term.
• Donald Trump (Republican): Signed the 2017 tax cuts bill and increased the federal deficit by over 300 percent (3 times the debt). Trump gets the award for increasing the national debt more than any other president.
• Joe Biden (Democrat): Oversaw a substantial drop in the annual deficit after pandemic emergency spending expired, reducing the annual deficit.
So where did the Republicans go? We are the judge, jury and voters. Who do we want to elect in November? Do we want to elect Donald Trump’s understudy Mary Miller? How much debt do you want to leave your kids and their kids and grandkids?
Ross Braun Macomb, Illinois
